About Thumbnails
The individual thumbnail images are positioned exactly at the beginning of the corresponding frame.
When you zoom in and there is enough space between the frames, the thumbnail is repeated as many times as there is free space available. Thus, you can always see a thumbnail regardless of how much you zoom in.
Thumbnail Memory Cache Size
In the Preferences dialog on the Video page, you can enter a value for the “Thumbnail Memory Cache Size”. This determines how much memory is available for displaying “real” thumbnails. The shown image is buffered in the thumbnail memory cache. Whenever you move to another image and there is no memory capacity left, the “oldest” picture in the cache is replaced by the current one. If you have long video clips and/or work with a large zoom factor, you may have to raise the “Thumbnail Memory Cache Size” value.
About thumbnail cache files
When importing video, Cubase automatically creates a thumbnail cache file. The cache file is used in situations where the processor load is very high and the correct redrawing or realtime calculation of thumbnails might use system resources necessary for editing or processing. When you zoom in on the thumbnails, you see that they are in a lower resolution, i. e. the pictures are not as clear as when they are calculated. When the processes that rely heavily on the computer CPU are finished, the frames are automatically recalculated, i. e. the program automatically switches between realtime calculation of the pictures and using the cache file.
There are situations where no thumbnail cache file can be generated, e. g. if you import a video file from a folder that is write-protected. If you have access to the host folder at a later stage, you can generate a thumbnail cache file manually.
Manually Generating Thumbnail Cache Files
If no thumbnail cache file could be generated during import or if you have to “refresh” a thumbnail cache file of a certain video file, because the file has been edited with an external video editing application, you have the possibility to generate the thumbnail cache file manually.
To create a thumbnail cache file manually, you have the following possibilities:
In the Pool, right-click on the video file that you want to create a thumbnail cache file for and select the “Generate Thumbnail Cache” option from the context menu.
A thumbnail cache file is created, or, in case there already existed a thumbnail cache file for the video file, it is “refreshed”.
In the Project window, open the context menu for the video event, and select “Generate Thumbnail Cache” from the Media submenu.
Open the Media Menu and select “Generate Thumbnail Cache”.
“Refreshing” an already existing thumbnail cache file can be done only from within the Pool.
The thumbnail cache file is generated in the background so that you can continue working with Cubase.